Platform Computing today announced that it has launched the Platform Alliance Network, an innovative partnership program designed to build a broad ecosystem to deliver virtualization solutions for the Datacenter. Platform also announced new partner additions to the network: CSC, Novell, Red Hat, VMware, Wipro, and Dell China. Enterprise IT departments are increasingly turning to virtualization of IT resources as a key strategy to meet the changing needs of the business and build sustainable competitive advantage. IT resource orchestration and virtualization management products such as Platform Enterprise Grid Orchestrator (EGO) and Platform VM Orchestrator (VMO), provide single, cohesive management environments that automate the allocation of resources across a grid platform to optimize utilization and deliver accelerated results from mission-critical applications. The Platform Alliance Network provides the framework within which partners can take advantage of these industry-leading solutions to virtualize and grid enable their offerings for the enterprise IT market. Unifying Platform's existing partner offerings, the Platform Alliance Network supports new and existing partners in the categories of Independent Software Vendors, System Integrators, Resellers, Hardware Vendors and Service Providers. Through the Platform Alliance Network, Platform and its partners will build complementary, flexible, heterogeneous solutions through product integration and validation, partner certification, software and hardware optimization, and content development. As a result, joint customers will benefit from the combined strengths of Platform and its partners across all product sets. Offering three distinct levels of participation, as well as programs targeted for each type of partner, the Platform Alliance Network allows companies to choose the amount of commitment that makes the most sense for them, ensuring that benefits are matched to the specific needs of each participant. Among these benefits are co-marketing opportunities, sales training, lead registration, partner support and access to Platform products. The release of developer editions of Symphony, Enterprise Grid Orchestrator and LSF through the Alliances Network offer partners rapid integration and extensibility options, as well as early access to new products and releases. Using these tools, ISV's can quickly enable their solutions to give their customers dynamic computing resource management, increased application performance, and improved service level delivery defined for their business units. "As Platform continues to take a leadership position in the convergence between Service Oriented Applications (SOA) and Service Oriented Infrastructure (SOI), a reorganization of, and deeper commitment to, our partner ecosystem is essential to the execution of our vision," said Chris Purpura, Vice President - Strategic Alliances and New Ventures of Platform Computing. "The adoption of Linux and Windows Clusters, the rise of multi- core chipsets, and the spread of various virtualization technologies provide unparalleled opportunities for IT departments to reduce costs, but these technologies will only work at an enterprise scale if applications can be made to run on these environments in a managed and orchestrated manner. The Partner Alliance Network will provide our ecosystem partners with streamlined access to our technologies and expertise in these areas."